The Other Worst Trades of the 1960s

 

TRIVIA WINNER: The answer to last weeks question was Jim Maloney of the Reds had a 12 year career with a 134-84 record before retiring at age 31.  The Prize: 10 points toward the person's total.

NEW TRIVIA CONTEST: You will still be required to enter the drawing as usual. However,  through the end of 2024 you will get points depending on the complexity of the questions. Enter each week and correct answers will get those points-one guess per person per week. The reader with the most points after the years final column will get a $50 Starbucks Gift Card. Ties will be placed into a drawing. Questions will be worth anywhere from 10-25 points depending on degree of difficulty. Questions will be more difficult as the year goes on, so you are never really out of the mix. Tell your friends and sports fans who like trivia. We will keep track of your points. - YOU MUST ENTER VIA THE EMAIL AT THE END OF THIS COLUMN.

NEW TRIVIA QUESTION:  Frank Robinson was traded several times in his career. How many other players were involved in all the Robinson trades? TOTAL 10 POINTS. 

Last week we explored the "worst" trades of the Winter Meetings in the 1960s. This week we explore arguably the two worst trades of the decade. There is no doubt the Reds sending Frank Robinson to the Orioles for Jack Baldschun, Milt Pappas and Dick Simpson was the biggest blunder in perhaps all of baseball. 

However, up until that trade, another was considered the worst. Remember Ernie Broglio for Lou Brock? 

When Red Sox fans talk about the "curse of the Babe," they were right to refer to deal which sent pitcher/hitter Babe Ruth to the hated New York Yankees for $100,000 in 1919. It wasn't until 2004 the Red Sox finally won a World Series. The Yankee story is legendary, led by the years Ruth starred for Murderer's Row. For the Chicago Cubs, there was a similar deal; the "Curse of Lou Brock" you might say. 

The Cubbies had not won a World Series since 1908. It was a dominant time for Chicago. The Cubs won in 1907 and the White Sox did it in 1906. But the Cubs would not win another Series Championship until 2016. A 108 year drought or longer than the Red Sox. During the 1960's the Cubs had some super star laden teams with Billy Williams, Ernie Banks, Ron Santo and a young outfielder named Lou Brock. Add pitchers such as Fergie Jenkins and you had the makings of a team which should have won at least one pennant.

Brock came to the Cubs as a free agent in 1960. The 1961 season opened with an outfield of Billy Williams, Richie Ashburn and Al Heist. A superstar in the making on his way to the Hall of Fame, an aging star also headed to the Hall and a player who came to the big leagues at 32 and would be out of the big leagues at 34 after a rather pedestrian three seasons in the Cubs outfield. There was clearly room for a breakout rookie.

Brock played sparingly in 1960 making his debut on September 10th, inserted into the starting line-up as the center fielder and lead off hitter.  Just over 7,000 fans saw Brock break in. He faced the great Robin Roberts and promptly smacked a single to center in his first at bat. The rest of his at bats, in his one-for-five debut, were non de script but he did score a run. 

In 1961 in four games he hit .091 and in his first full season, 1962, he was still getting familiar with the big league pitching. The son of a share cropper, he had dominated in his only minor league campaign, winning the batting title with a .361 average in the Northern League. 

The 1962 season saw the young outfielder hit .263 followed by .258 with nine homers in each year. As swift as he was, Brock stole 16 and 24 bases in those two years. It wasn't enough for Cub's management. They needed pitching and the Cardinals needed an outfielder.

On June 15, 1964, the Cubs made what was long thought of as one of the worst trades in major league baseball history. They sent Brock, along with Jack Spring and Paul Toth to the St. Louis Cardinals for Ernie Broglio, Doug Clemens and Bobby Shantz. Broglio was the key. The tall right-hander had won 21 games to lead the NL in 1960. After an off-season in 1961 he came back to win 12 and then 18 in 1963. The Cubs wanted him and they got him. Brock was expendable.

Brock, hitting only .251 when the trade took place, scorched opposing pitchers in St. Louis at a .348 clip and finished the year at .315 with 30 doubles, 11 triples, 14 homers and 43 stolen bases. Broglio went 7-12 with a 3.82 ERA. Brock went on to a Hall of Fame career and a then record 938 stolen bases including 118 in 1974. 

Broglio won three more games in the following two seasons and was out of baseball when the 1966 season ended. Brock had a life-time .293 average with 149 homers, while Broglio won 77 and lost 74 in his career. 

As for the others in the trade; Bobby Shantz retired at the end of the 1964 season, Doug Clemons played one less than illustrious season in Chicago before ending up three more pedestrian years in Philadelphia, Jack Spring pitched a total of 24 more MLB innings and Paul Toth pitched 10 more innings for the Cubs giving up 10 runs before calling it quits in 1967, having never pitched in the big leagues again.

TRIVIA CONTEST; Enter via the following email. Send 1) your answer to the trivia question at the top of the column, 2) your name, address and email so where we know where to send the card if you win 3) any comment you have on the column. One winner will be selected at the end of the calendar year based on the total points acquired via weekly contests.

                              brillpro@gmail.com 
 ==========================================================
I've written more than a dozen books including at least two sports books. You can find these at my Amazon page or at my own website www.bobbrillbooks.com. Please take a look at the sports books, the western novel series or the "Tattoo Murder," which is a crime book set in Ventura, CA.

Use PayPal to brillpro@prodigy.net or contact us at the same email for other payment. 

Thank you to those of you who purchased my books after reading this column.  

Just a note to add; If you look at the top right hand corner of the side bar you will see a link to daily sports scores. We made an agreement with Baseball 24 in a mutual sharing situation. Hope its helpful to fans of several sports.

The Winter Meetings - The Worst

 

TRIVIA WINNER: The answer to last weeks question was Nolan Ryan broke Sandy Koufax single season strikeout record by just one strikeout.  The Prize: 10 points toward the person's total.

NEW TRIVIA CONTEST: You will still be required to enter the drawing as usual. However,  through the end of 2024 you will get points depending on the complexity of the questions. Enter each week and correct answers will get those points-one guess per person per week. The reader with the most points after the years final column will get a $50 Starbucks Gift Card. Ties will be placed into a drawing. Questions will be worth anywhere from 10-25 points depending on degree of difficulty. Questions will be more difficult as the year goes on, so you are never really out of the mix. Tell your friends and sports fans who like trivia. We will keep track of your points. - YOU MUST ENTER VIA THE EMAIL AT THE END OF THIS COLUMN.

NEW TRIVIA QUESTION:  This former 1960s pitcher had a record of 134-84 in a 12 year career. He retired at age 31 barely pitching into the 1970s.? TOTAL 10 POINTS. 

The Winter Meetings are about to begin and while today's free agency dominates what goes on, in the 1960s, it was the Meetings which dominated.  The Meetings are always a time of excitement for baseball fans hoping their team will make just the right move, putting them in the next World Series. I thought we'd explore some of those hopes which did not pan out in the 1960s.

The 1967 Pirates could hit despite the fall off from the Lumber Company of 1966. The club still needed pitching and thought one great pitcher would put them over the top. They set their eyes on one of the all-time greats; Jim Bunning, a future HOFer. The Phillies needed youth, the Bucs needed a Horse and Bunning was coming off another amazing season with a 2.29 ERA and a 17-15 recording while leading the league with 40 starts, 302 innings and 253 strike outs. He also led the league in shutouts with six. The perfect fit.

In return the Pirates sent starting pitcher Woody Fryman to the Phils in a multi-player deal which included future all-star second baseman, Don Money. It totally backfired for Pittsburgh, totally was a winner for Philadelphia.

Bunning had the worst year of his career in Pittsburgh in 1968, ending 4-14 with an 3.88 ERA, was traded to the Dodgers the following season and while coming back at 13-10 in 1969, was released. Fryman went onto pitch into the 1980s and won 141 games, Money (a four time all-star) had a 16 year career, batting .261 with 176 homers.

The 1964 Cleveland Indians finished fourth in the AL and needed some power to compete, so they went after a real slugger; Rocky Colavito. In what turned out to be a massive three team trade in January 1965, the Indians got Colavito from Kansas City. They gave up, to the White Sox, future stars Tommie Agee, Tommy John and slugging catcher John Romano.

Colavito did slug 56 homers and drive in 180 runs in the following two seasons but the club only improved to fifth place both years. What the Indians had hoped for didn't work. Evidently they figured they could finish in the second division with the Rock, they could finish in the second division without him. They shipped him to the White Sox for Jim King. Colavito never regained his form and hit 32 homers the rest of his career which ended at age 33 in 1968 with the Yankees.

Giving up Colavito proved to be a good thing but the return didn't improve the A's by much. The players they got, Mike Hershberger, Jim Landis and Fred Talbot were average players at best during their time in Kansas City.

A third trade involved a couple of minor league players and is the "who would have thunk it?" trade. The White Sox had a super minor leaguer who had been in their system for some time and he ended up in the Angels organization during the year of expansion. Joe Hicks was a pretty good slugger, who the new Washington Senators liked. The Angels liked a young pitcher the Sens had signed by the name of Dean Chance. In December of 1960, they swapped the two players.

In two minor league seasons Chance went 22-12 with ERA's at 2.94 and 3.13. What the Angels saw in Chance and what the Senators saw in Hicks, only somebody in the stratosphere would know. Chance went on to become one of the best pitchers of the era. Twice he won 20 games and finished with 128 wins. Hicks came to bat only 455 times in his big league career, batting .221 with 12 homers. He was out of the big leagues by 1964 but continued to play in the minors through 1966. He did however hit 107 minor league homers over 11 seasons.

TRIVIA CONTEST; Enter via the following email. Send 1) your answer to the trivia question at the top of the column, 2) your name, address and email so where we know where to send the card if you win 3) any comment you have on the column. One winner will be selected at the end of the calendar year based on the total points acquired via weekly contests.

                              brillpro@gmail.com 
 ==========================================================
I've written more than a dozen books including at least two sports books. You can find these at my Amazon page or at my own website www.bobbrillbooks.com. Please take a look at the sports books, the western novel series or the "Tattoo Murder," which is a crime book set in Ventura, CA.

Use PayPal to brillpro@prodigy.net or contact us at the same email for other payment. 

Thank you to those of you who purchased my books after reading this column.  

Just a note to add; If you look at the top right hand corner of the side bar you will see a link to daily sports scores. We made an agreement with Baseball 24 in a mutual sharing situation. Hope its helpful to fans of several sports.

WORLD SERIES; Dodgers vs. Orioles - Game TWO 1966 - Koufax Last Game

 

TRIVIA WINNER: The answer to last weeks question was the Yankees between 1927-1950 swept the World Series six times, the first against Pittsburgh with the 1927 Yankees, known as the Greatest Team of All-Time.  The Prize: 15 points toward the person's total.

NEW TRIVIA CONTEST: You will still be required to enter the drawing as usual. However,  through the end of 2024 you will get points depending on the complexity of the questions. Enter each week and correct answers will get those points-one guess per person per week. The reader with the most points after the years final column will get a $50 Starbucks Gift Card. Ties will be placed into a drawing. Questions will be worth anywhere from 10-25 points depending on degree of difficulty. Questions will be more difficult as the year goes on, so you are never really out of the mix. Tell your friends and sports fans who like trivia. We will keep track of your points. - YOU MUST ENTER VIA THE EMAIL AT THE END OF THIS COLUMN.

NEW TRIVIA QUESTION:  Sandy Koufax set the major league record for strikeouts in a season in the 1900s. Who broke it in the modern era? TOTAL 10 POINTS. 

It was probably the poorest performance by a team in the history of the World Series, definitely the worst of the 1960s. More importantly, it was the very last game of the illustrious career of Hall of Fame Great; Sandy Koufax.

In the regular season Koufax had his best ever season. He pitched 323 innings, striking out 317 batters while posting a 1.73 ERA and a 27-9 record. His WHIP was an unheard of 0.985. Less than one hit or walk per inning pitched. Amazing. Because of arthritis in his arm, he would retire after the Series.

The Dodgers had already lost Game One to the Frank Robinson led O's 5-2. Those two runs would be all that the Dodgers would score in the entire Series. In Game Two, Koufax would give up four runs, but only one earned. It was a contest where the Dodgers made six errors, and it was yes, that infamous game when Willie Davis made three errors himself. 

Meanwhile Jim Palmer was shutting out the weak hitting Los Angeles on just four hits. Palmer went the distance. The loss was insurmountable. The Orioles would post consecutive 1-0 shutouts in games 3 & 4. The Dodgers combined Series BA was .142 with just 17 hits in 120 AB. Frank Robinson, who won the Triple Crown in 1966, was the Series MVP. As the Dodgers did in sweeping the Yankees in 1963, the O's used just four pitchers in the Series. 

TRIVIA CONTEST; Enter via the following email. Send 1) your answer to the trivia question at the top of the column, 2) your name, address and email so where we know where to send the card if you win 3) any comment you have on the column. One winner will be selected at the end of the calendar year based on the total points acquired via weekly contests.

                              brillpro@gmail.com 
 ==========================================================
I've written more than a dozen books including at least two sports books. You can find these at my Amazon page or at my own website www.bobbrillbooks.com. Please take a look at the sports books, the western novel series or the "Tattoo Murder," which is a crime book set in Ventura, CA.

Use PayPal to brillpro@prodigy.net or contact us at the same email for other payment. 

Thank you to those of you who purchased my books after reading this column.  

Just a note to add; If you look at the top right hand corner of the side bar you will see a link to daily sports scores. We made an agreement with Baseball 24 in a mutual sharing situation. Hope its helpful to fans of several sports.